France when Clovis, its first king, was baptized.
And although we cannot say much for the Christian virtues of the worthy
king Clovis, we are given to understand that Heaven smiled on his
conversion, for the story goes that a dove came down from the realm of
the blessed, bearing a small vial of holy oil, which was placed in the
hands of St. Remy to be used in anointing the king at his coronation.
Afterwards the saint placed this vial in his own tomb, where it was
after many years discovered by miracle. It is true, St. Remy tells us
none of this. Our authority for it is Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, who
flourished four centuries after Clovis and his converter had been
gathered to their fathers. But as Hincmar defied those who doubted the
story of the dove and the vial to prove the contrary, and produced a
vial of oil from the saint's tomb in further proof of his statement, no
reasonable person--at that day--could longer deny it, though the first
mention of it is by a chronicler who lived a century and a half after
the saint.

From the days of Hincmar forward the monarchs of France, at their
coronation, were anointed with this holy oil. And as the dove was said
to have descended at Rheims, and St. Remy was buried there, this became
the city of the coronation. An order of knighthood was founded to take
part in the coronation,--the "Knights of the Sainte Ampoule,"--but the
worthy incumbents held their office for a day only,--that of the
crowning of the king. They were created for that purpose, received the
precious vial from the archbishop, and after the ceremony returned it to
that high dignitary of the church and saw it restored to its
abiding-place. This done, they ceased to exist as knights of the holy
oil, the order dying while the king lived.

But these short-lived chevaliers made the most of their opportunity, and
crowded all the splendor and dignity into their one day that it would
well bear. The sacred vial was kept in the abbey of St. Remy, and from
that place to the cathedral they moved in a stately procession that
almost threw the cortege of the king into the shade. The Grand Prior of
St. Remy bore the vial, in its case or shrine, which hung from his neck
by a golden chain. He rode always on a white horse, being covered by a
magnificent canopy, upheld by the knights of the Sainte Ampoule. The
cathedral reached, the prior placed the vial in the hands of the
archbishop, who pledged himself by a solemn oath to r